Using citizen science to understand the prerequisites for physical activity among adolescents in low socioeconomic status neighborhoods - The NESLA study.

Socioeconomic status (SES) as well as adolescents' perceptions of the neighborhood's built and social environments have been shown to influence adolescents' physical activity. Twenty-four adolescents from two low SES neighborhoods in Sweden participated as citizen scientists, using the Stanford Discovery Tool app on their phones to take photographs and record audio narratives of aspects of their neighborhood that they perceived facilitate or hinder their physical activity. The most frequently reported facilitators were 'parks, playgrounds and outdoor gym' as well as 'amenities' and 'sport facilities', whereas lack of or shortcomings regarding 'bikeability and walkability', 'personal safety' and 'lighting' were the most frequently reported barriers. The results will be used to inform local politicians and policy makers about new ways to improve physical activity among residents in Sweden's low SES neighborhoods. Also, this study shows that a Swedish version of the Discovery Tool app is acceptable and can generate useful information in the context of adolescents from disadvantaged neighborhoods.

Data from an Our Voice citizen science initiative in neighborhoods with low socioeconomic status in Sweden: A proof of concept for collecting complex data.

This data article describes data from an Our Voice citizen science data collection aiming at identifying elements that facilitate or hinder physical activity among adolescents in a medium sized city in Sweden. Twenty-four adolescents from two neighborhoods with low socioeconomic status in Sweden used the Stanford Healthy Neighborhood Discovery Tool app on their phones to take photographs and record audio narratives of aspects of their neighborhood that they perceived as facilitating or hindering their physically activity. In total, 186 photos of the neighborhood elements were taken by the adolescents and thereafter the research group categorized the photos into a final set of 16 elements of which 12 described the built environment and 4 the social environment. The data collection included the combination of the following data collected using the app: photographs, geocoded data of where the photographs were taken, recorded narratives describing the photographs, positive and negative neighborhood attributes (portrayed as a happy or sad "smiley face"), and an 8-item survey. In addition, we used official statistics from the City of Västerås describing the two neighborhoods as well as the whole city. This data article is associated with the article titled "Using citizen science to understand the prerequisites for physical activity among adolescents in low socioeconomic status neighborhoods - the NESLA study" [1].